Bank Account Closure

brownriceoysterolive

While I understand banks can close accounts without giving a reason. If you find they held information about you that was not related to you and you find that shortly after they closed your account. Can they do this? Are you entitled to evidence of any effect it might have had or not? Can they still refuse with their standard wordings of not having to give a reason?

eskbanker

It would probably be worth being less cryptic about the information you're referring to, and how it came to light.

Any organisation processing personal data has to disclose this to the data subject, via the subject access request provisions of the Data Protection Act, have you done this?  There are various exemptions, so it may not be viable to use this to ascertain detailed reasons for account closure....

brownriceoysterolive

eskbanker said:

It would probably be worth being less cryptic about the information you're referring to, and how it came to light.

Any organisation processing personal data has to disclose this to the data subject, via the subject access request provisions of the Data Protection Act, have you done this?  There are various exemptions, so it may not be viable to use this to ascertain detailed reasons for account closure....

It came to light following a Subject Access Request after they refused to give a reason and I found they can do that apparently. Anyway back to the point the data in question was fraud related notes and indicated high risk and the closure was because I was deemed high risk. Those had nothing to do with me so and not longer after was the account closure. This is really really strange. 

DullGreyGuy

Ultimately they can always decide if they want someone as a customer or not as long as it's not based on certain protected characteristics etc. The only real difference is the amount of notice they have to give to close it... if they think you are money laundering or doing something else illegal they can close it without notice. If they've just decided they dont like you for some non-protected reason then they'd need to give you reasonable notice. 

Normally they'd tell you why they are closing it, though its likely to be in some generic form, however this has to be considered against various other laws on "tipping off", so for example if it was a money laundering concern they wouldn't be allowed to tell you that as tipping off is an offence in itself. 

MeteredOut

So are you saying

- Your account was closed but they would not tell you why
- You did a SAR and fraud related notes were marked against you, deeming you high risk, but those fraud related notes have mistakenly been marked against you
- You raised this with the bank but they reiterate that they cannot tell you any more

Have you raised a complaint with them? I appreciate this might be difficult if you are no longer a customer. Have you considered raising it with the Financial Ombudsman?

brownriceoysterolive

DullGreyGuy said:

Ultimately they can always decide if they want someone as a customer or not as long as it's not based on certain protected characteristics etc. The only real difference is the amount of notice they have to give to close it... if they think you are money laundering or doing something else illegal they can close it without notice. If they've just decided they dont like you for some non-protected reason then they'd need to give you reasonable notice. 

Normally they'd tell you why they are closing it, though its likely to be in some generic form, however this has to be considered against various other laws on "tipping off", so for example if it was a money laundering concern they wouldn't be allowed to tell you that as tipping off is an offence in itself. 

It seems it was in fact risk related so that might explain why they can’t give a reason. However it’s clear from my SAR they breached someone else’s data and it was held against me and shortly after closed my account. 

brownriceoysterolive

MeteredOut said:

So are you saying

- Your account was closed but they would not tell you why
- You did a SAR and fraud related notes were marked against you, deeming you high risk, but those fraud related notes have mistakenly been marked against you
- You raised this with the bank but they reiterate that they cannot tell you any more

Have you raised a complaint with them? I appreciate this might be difficult if you are no longer a customer. Have you considered raising it with the Financial Ombudsman?

I did raise it and they wouldn’t address it by saying that yes and then eventually it was unrelated to me and accidentally included but seems like a big lie because of the timing and nature of it.

MeteredOut

brownriceoysterolive said:

MeteredOut said:

So are you saying

- Your account was closed but they would not tell you why
- You did a SAR and fraud related notes were marked against you, deeming you high risk, but those fraud related notes have mistakenly been marked against you
- You raised this with the bank but they reiterate that they cannot tell you any more

Have you raised a complaint with them? I appreciate this might be difficult if you are no longer a customer. Have you considered raising it with the Financial Ombudsman?

I did raise it and they wouldn’t address it by saying that yes and then eventually it was unrelated to me and accidentally included but seems like a big lie because of the timing and nature of it.

If you want to push it the FOS is probably your next step, but is it worth it? Do you actually want your account re-opened if you believe they've treated you so poorly?

Have you checked your credit reports and cfias markers to ensure nothing erroneous has been added there?

brownriceoysterolive

MeteredOut said:

brownriceoysterolive said:

MeteredOut said:

So are you saying

- Your account was closed but they would not tell you why
- You did a SAR and fraud related notes were marked against you, deeming you high risk, but those fraud related notes have mistakenly been marked against you
- You raised this with the bank but they reiterate that they cannot tell you any more

Have you raised a complaint with them? I appreciate this might be difficult if you are no longer a customer. Have you considered raising it with the Financial Ombudsman?

I did raise it and they wouldn’t address it by saying that yes and then eventually it was unrelated to me and accidentally included but seems like a big lie because of the timing and nature of it.

If you want to push it the FOS is probably your next step, but is it worth it? Do you actually want your account re-opened if you believe they've treated you so poorly?

Have you checked your credit reports and cfias markers to ensure nothing erroneous has been added there?

It’s actually not about reopening it anymore. It’s the fact I find it so unacceptable and the poor treatment to hide their own errors and the data breach. More so for the accountability and fairness. CIFAS is clear yes.

eskbanker

As above, what's your desired outcome here?

As well as escalation of the formal complaint to FOS, you also have the option of raising the matter with the ICO, on the basis of deficient personal data management practices causing a DPA breach, but any punishment dished out by the ICO (unlikely anyway) wouldn't really help you....

brownriceoysterolive

eskbanker said:

As above, what's your desired outcome here?

As well as escalation of the formal complaint to FOS, you also have the option of raising the matter with the ICO, on the basis of deficient personal data management practices causing a DPA breach, but any punishment dished out by the ICO (unlikely anyway) wouldn't really help you....

Given the really poor treatment some proper accountability I guess. I don’t want an account with them anymore anyway it’s just that it shouldn’t even be possible for this to happen